Ray Aldrildge. Hyena Eyes
Hyena Eyes
By Ray Aldrildge
Ray Aldridge. Hyena Eyes. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1990
THENDARD LOAM WAS larger than any human being should be. Cayten Borlavinda always saw him with a small start of amazement, though she had known him for many years. He was nearly three meters tall, and almost as wide. He had three hearts, two sets of lungs, and remote boosterpumps in each massive limb. His skin was charcoal black; his hair, which rose in high, spiraling twists, was bone white.
Cayten wandered aimlessly through Thendard's loft, which had once been an autofac. A few dead robots still stood on the steel floor, towering above the other furnishings. During some long-ago fit of domesticity, Thendard had painted the robots in fanciful pastels — pinks, aquas, powder blues — so that they seemed like enormous toys. She leaned against one of them and touched her forehead to the cool metal, which still smelled faintly of machine oil.
"Well, we must have him killed, Cayten," Thendard said. Thendard filled an oversize powerchair, his flesh spilling over the arms in dark, shiny billows. His great face bore an expression of painful concern.
She stood back and shook her head. "No. I'm not quite ready for that." Her face felt stiff, as though her tears had been not ordinary salt but some strong preservative solution, effective against decay and further emotion. Her eyes were dry now. Pseudoskin covered her injured cheek; the medunit had assured her that there would be no scars to be repaired.
"A joke, Cayten, please." Thendard shifted his bulk, and the chair squeaked, a small, desperately overloaded sound.
"I still want to punish him."
Thendard shook his head. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't have thought it of him. To think that Genoaro would hurt you.... He's always been a strange man — you knew that when you contracted with him — but always a gentle man, too."
"You know why, Thendard. It's the Level."
"Ah, the Level! Yes, the Level is bad for some. Dilvermoon may be the sweetest melon in the universe, as they say, but the Level might be a layer of rot just under her rind." Thendard was solemn. "Yes, Dilvermoon suffers a disease, much like all of us who dwell within her — and Genoaro is no exception."
She loved Thendard, but sometimes she had no patience with his pompous epigrams. He delivered them so relentlessly. "Please, Thendard, not now," she said wearily.
"Oh..." His brows drew together; his mouth pursed. "Sorry. Well, what can I do?"
"Give me a place to stay, for a while. Give me advice when I'm ready to hear it. Please." She knew her voice was harsh, but she couldn't help it. Thendard was a beaster, too, and so partook of Genoaro's sins; for all that Thendard was a sweet and guileless man.
"Of course," Thendard said quickly. "Of course."
Down in the artists' quarter, the Bo'eme, she shared a renovated warehouse with Genoaro. Their workshops were at opposite ends of that echoing space; their living area in the middle. She had been having a late breakfast alone, when she heard a crash from his workshop, followed by a truncated sob. She went to investigate, with caution and more than a touch of fear, though she could not yet consciously admit to that emotion in connection with Genoaro Maryal.
She found him slumped cross-legged in a comer, toying with the pieces of a broken obsidian dagger.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"It won't come right," he muttered. "This is the sixth casting, and it won't come right."
She knelt beside him. "What happened this time?"
"The same. The annealing...."
"This is for the Linean embassy?" She touched a fragment, still warm from the annealing oven. Cayten did not pretend to understand the intricacies of his craft, which was the making of ceremonial glass weapons. He labored not only under the handicap of a delicate, unforgiving technique, but also under a thorny thicket of political and religious requirements. But he was very good; his knives and swords and axes were much sought after by collectors. He attracted many commissions from the diplomatic enclaves of Dilvermoon; his work was elegant, fragile, expensive — ideal qualities in a gift of state.
"Yes. For one of their more repulsive rituals, I'm told. They need it by the end of the month." Genoaro's voice was thick with some scornful emotion. He stood up, a tall man with large, rough hands. His cheekbones were as sharp as his knives, his pale eyes deep-set under thick brows. He walked to the bench, picked up a pipe, set it down, peered into the gloryhole furnace, adjusted the flow of fuel — all his movements betraying anxious energy, barely under control.
Sadness stabbed through her. He had changed so much — even in his body. Before, he had been elegantly wiry; now his body was thickening with clone-doubled muscle. Daily he grew more heavy-shouldered, more powerful. His face had broadened, and knobs of new muscle writhed at the corners of his jaws.
He reached up, probed carefully at the back of his neck, and Cayten stiffened. "No," she said. "Please don't. That's not the thing to do, Genoaro."
He looked at her, expressionless, for a long moment. "How do you know?"
"Genoaro...." Her voice trailed away under the flat stare he gave her.
He reached into a cupboard, took down a small platinum case. He opened it, removed a small ovoid of plastic and metal. He held it up between thumb and forefinger, showing it to her. "Why shouldn't I?" His eyes seemed to belong to an unpleasant stranger.
She looked away. "I don't think it's good for you. The Level."
"You're not my crechemother, Cayten." His voice, ordinarily so soft, grated. She winced.
"No, no, I'm not. But I do love you."
He was very still, as if caught on the sharp edge of a decision, balanced just for the moment. He moved suddenly, closing the cupboard and shutting down his furnaces. Then he reached back and snapped the personaskein into the receptacle at the base of his skull.
He changed, as the persona spread out into his cortex. His face hardened; his mouth stretched in a wide, humorless grin; his eyes took on a yellow opacity. He took a step toward her, an abrupt, alien movement. "I'm going up," he growled. He showed his teeth, his lips wrinkling back in a frightening inhuman gesture.
She stepped to block the door, and held up her hands pleadingly. "I know you're still there, Genoaro. I know you're not a real hyena. Thendard's told me how it is, so don't pretend you can't understand me."
He moved so quickly.
She was too surprised to dodge. He knocked her aside, and his sharp nails slashed open her cheek.
Then he was gone, and she had found herself sitting on the floor, bleeding.
CAYTEN WALKED along the wall where Thendard kept his memorabilia — the charming detritus of a long and experimental life. Thendard kept pace with her, riding his powerchair a step behind.
She paused before a cluster of wall-mounted holostills, which showed Thendard roaming the Level in his favored persona.
"You make a lovely elephant, Thendard." She peered at one window, in which a naked Thendard mounted another beaster, a gigantic woman wearing the swirling shoulder tattoos of a Retrantic enforcer. Cayten wondered if such sexual congress was even possible, considering the immensity of the participants. Perhaps Thendard had additional bodymods, she thought, peering closer; but the constricted angle from which she could view the image preserved his modesty. The two of them wore identical wish-you-were-here smiles. "How...?"
A good-natured leer earthquaked across Thendard's face. "I'd show you, but you're far too insubstantial, a wisp of a woman, a sprite."
She ignored him, and leaned over a case of antique skinmasks. Thendard had once been an actor, and his collection of theatrical artifacts was very fine. But she wasn't seeing the gleaming contours of the masks; she was seeing Genoaro, curved over the back of some thick-bodied hyena bitch, taut as a bowstring, snarling joyfully.